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Good Housekeeping
May 2000
Lauren Mills, left, with
daughters Emily Mills and Bethany Rae
My Problem: Promises to Keep
by Lauren Mills
When I was a teenager on vacation in the Florida Keys, I impulsively
conceived a baby with a boy I'd known for only a few days, in an
attempt to force my Mother and stepfather to save their crumbling
marriage. Of course, it didn't work. When I gave birth
at 16, I knew I wasn't prepared to be a parent. But I wanted
the best for my little girl, and adoption seemed like the right
decision for everyone.
I saw my baby for a few minutes after her birth on
September 4, 1973. I kissed her; then she was gone. At
that moment, I made pact with God: If he would give my daughter a
home with loving parents, then one day I'd have another child, and
I'd be the best parent I could.
Of course, I couldn't know then what I'd have to endure
to fulfill my promise.
BACK IN NEW JERSEY, I
TRIED TO PULL MYSELF TOGETHER AND make the best of my last two years
in high school. I married at 20, and divorced three years
later. Then, attempting to set my life right, I earned a
degree at an art and design school and moved through a series of
jobs in the commercial-art field.
Over the years, I would see little girls who might be
the same age as the child I gave up. I wondered: Is my
daughter happy? Is she being treated well? I decided
that when she became an adult, I would try to find her.
When I was 29, I met Paul, a handsome, kind man.
We fell passionately in love and couldn't wait to marry. Three
months after we met, we said vows. In new home, in New Hope,
Pennsylvania, I discovered that life could be as perfect as I'd
always hoped.
A year later, we decided to start a family. I
quickly became pregnant. But I went into premature labor at
only 24 weeks, and the doctors' efforts to delay the delivery were
unsuccessful. On March 13, 1987, I gave birth to Christopher.
Weighing just one pound 12 ounces, he was heartbreakingly tiny and
breathtakingly beautiful.
Miraculously, he didn't die, although he had many
critical problems. He underwent multiple operations, and Paul
and I were told he'd never function beyond the level of a
preschooler. Health-care professionals recommended that we
institutionalize him. I refused. Instead, I gave up my
job, brought my son home, and concentrated on learning about
therapies available for brain-injured children. For the first
time in my life, I felt like a parent, and I was awed at the
intensity and depth of the love I experienced for my child.
Despite my efforts, Christopher continued to struggle, battling
recurring pneumonia and suffering frequent epileptic seizures.
And the fight for his survival took a toll on me, Paul, and our life
together. We both gained weight. Paul moved through
several jobs. Our medical bills soared, our insurance was
insufficient, and we had to sell our home.
In spring of 1989, we were living in an apartment in
central New Jersey when we finally admitted Christopher to a
rehabilitation hospital. A month later, he suffered a major
seizure and cardiac arrest. Revived, he lingered for 20 more
days. He was 27 months old.
Paul was shattered. Dealing with the pain, was
too hard for him, and three weeks after Christopher's death, he left
me. For the sake of his own survival, he needed to make a
fresh start alone.
For me, the days that followed were truly horrible.
But within the darkness of my grief, I discovered an inner strength.
I believed my life still had purpose. I saw that I had to go
forward—and I had to change myself and everything in my life for the
better.
Christopher was never far from my mind. I often
visited his grave to sit and talk to him. Slowly, I put the
broken pieces of my world back together. I thought I should be
helping other families with children like my son, so I decided to
enroll in college and study nursing. Empowered with fresh hope
and motivation, I lost 45 pounds and moved to a different town.
I found new friends when I joined a sports club. Ken, a
software engineer I met there, was a casual acquaintance for many
months. Then, at a club party, in a moment that could have
come out of a storybook, he took me in his arms to dance, our eyes
met...and our romance began.
Soon we were seeing each other every day.
Gradually, I let him know about my past, and he responded with
sympathy, acceptance, and respect.
We married in June 1994. I was 37. After
our honeymoon, we moved to Oregon, where Ken was transferred.
A few months later, we learned that we were going to have a baby.
But at ten weeks, I miscarried. Our doctor encouraged us to
try again. The next month, I was pregnant once more. And I
lost that baby too.
This time, the grief and hopelessness that descended on
me were profound. I couldn't stop crying. There's no
future, I kept thinking.
There's nothing. One day, in the depths of my despair,
I tried to leave the house and made it only as far as the driveway,
where I sat in the car for four hours, crying.
My heart had truly broken. I'd tried to change my
life, do everything right. But that wasn't enough to protect
me from tragedy. I felt that I could no longer go on.
Another attempt at pregnancy seemed out of the question. I
needed a break. So did Ken.
AS AN EMPLOYEE FOR A LARGE COMPUTER
company, Ken often talked about the Internet, and he suggested that
I get acquainted with the online world, where I might find a support
group or be able to explore some other interest. It proved to
be an excellent idea. On a June night in 1995, a spark of
renewed hope flickered in me as I surfed the Web and discovered a
bulletin board for birth mothers seeking to be reunited with their
children.
I'd always planned to find my daughter, although I
hadn't made-much effort over the years. As much as I wanted to
find her, I was afraid that she would be angry and unforgiving with
me for what I had done. But she was nearly 22 now; perhaps the
time had come to take the chance. On that thought, without
hesitation, I began typing: Searching for daughter born early
September '73...
I didn't expect to be successful; it seemed so
unlikely. But in mid-July, a young woman living in Michigan
saw my posting and knew her search for her birth mother had ended.
Lauren, it's me, she wrote. I'm glad to
finally meet you...again. I've always wanted to say something to
you. Twenty-one years ago, you made the right choice. You've
given me a chance to live, love, and grow, and I wanted to say THANK
YOU! Please let me know that I'm not dreaming. Love,
Bethany.
I didn't see her reply because I wasn't checking the
bulletin board. So Bethany, impatient for a response and armed
with new information, was able to track down my phone number. When
her call came, it was a glorious moment for both of us. We
immediately experienced a sense of deep connection, talking for five
hours that evening. Over the next few weeks, we shared the
stories of our lives in calls, letters, and e-mail. Before the
summer was over, I held my girl in my arms again, when she came to
see us in Oregon.
A part of me thought, This is too good to be true.
Then it got better. While Bethany was staying with us, I
learned that I was pregnant again. I was 39, had suffered so
much, but now felt overwhelmed with good fortune.
This time, my pregnancy progressed through the first
trimester without any difficulty. But at 12 weeks, without
warning, the fetus's heartbeat just stopped. We couldn't
believe it. What had happened? Why?
We learned that our baby had had chromosomal
abnormalities caused by Down syndrome, and with that knowledge, both
Ken and I found ourselves with no more strength to keep trying.
Neither of us could face the sadness of another miscarriage.
Now, we talked, long and hard, looking at our options. We
decided to adopt.
Because we were too old and too recently married, and
because I was divorced, we fell short of the requirements for a
domestic adoption, but finding a Chinese child through an
international organization seemed a possibility. It took us
six months to complete the paperwork, and only a few weeks after our
application was accepted, the program bringing babies out of China
slowed to a stop. We were discouraged.
Throughout this time, Bethany was with me emotionally
for every up and down. I came to know her parents as kind,
caring people, and to realize that God had granted at least part of
my prayer on the day my daughter was born.
In March 1997, our phone rang with the call we'd been
waiting for. A lawyer who'd been working on our behalf was
calling to say a 3-month-old Pacific island girl was being given up
for adoption by her parents, and Ken and I were the next couple on
the waiting list. We would have to leave in five days for the
Marshall Islands, near the equator, a five-hour flight from Hawaii.
The cost would be high, but we didn't hesitate. We scrambled to
ready our documents and take the necessary physical exams. On
the plane, discussing names, we grew more and more excited.
But, minutes after we landed, our expectations were
dashed. Our local guide met us with the news that the baby's parents
had reconsidered. The adoption wasn't going to happen.
But hope does spring eternal. Despite
everything, we decided not to leave at once, but to stay for a
while, to see if something might work out. After ten days, Ken
had to return to work in Oregon. I remained behind, still
clinging to the dream, even though it meant missing Bethany's
college graduation—and watching four more chances to adopt end in
failure.
Ultimately, I had to give up. I was packing when
our guide, with whom I was staying, rushed into my room.
"What were you and Ken going to name your baby?" she
asked.
"Emily Elizabeth," I said.
"Well," she told me, "we found a baby girl for you.
We have your Emily."
At her words, I was overwhelmed. I began to sob
and laugh at once.
Two days later, I met Emily's birth parents. They
were from the island of Majuro and were looking for an American
couple to adopt their fourth child, a newborn girl they couldn't
afford to raise. We spoke through a translator, but I was so
tense, I almost couldn't speak at all. But I needn't have
worried: Their decision was made. They looked at an album I'd
brought, which contained pictures of my family. They asked
questions about Ken. And then they asked when I was planning
to leave.
"In two days," I told them.
"Then we'll do the paperwork tomorrow," they said.
It was very matter-of-fact. After all my
struggles, I finally was getting a chance to raise a child.
EMILY'S BIRTH PARENTS CAME TO THE airport to see us off. As Emily's
mother held her baby and cried, I experienced one of the most
difficult, bittersweet moments of my life. I knew what it was
like to relinquish a child, but I also knew that what we were doing
was right, just as I had known it when I'd given up Bethany.
For a moment, I thought they weren't going to let me
take Emily. But then Emily's mother bravely handed her baby to
me. I told her that she was giving Ken and me a gift we could
never give ourselves. And she gave it to me on my fortieth
birthday.
The sun was shining brightly as I walked across the
tarmac holding Emily.
Inside the plane, someone said, "Oh, your baby is so
beautiful."
Yes, I thought, this is my baby. I'm a
mom. This is what I've waited for my whole life. *
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